Currently, in purchasing a domestic washing machine, not only a washing performance, but also convenience of use are very important product purchasing factors. According to this, development of products is accelerated for enhancing the convenience of use.
In the meantime, though drum type washing, washing laundry by using a friction force between a drum rotated by a driving power of a motor and laundry in a state detergent, washing water, and the laundry are introduced into the drum, shows almost no damage to, and entangling of the laundry, and has pounding, and rubbing washing effects, the drum type washing has inconvenience in introduction/taking out laundry, for improving which technologies are under development.
An exemplary related art drum type washing machine will be described briefly with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.
FIG. 1 illustrates a section of a related art drum type washing machine, provided with a tub 2 in an outer case 1 supported with dampers 22 and hanging springs 21, a cylindrical drum 3 rotatably mounted in the tub 2, and a driving motor 4 in rear of the tub 2 for receiving power to generate rotating force.
The driving motor 4 has a stator fixedly secured to a rear wall portion of the tub 2 directly, and a rotor mounted on an outer side of the stator, wherein there is a rotation shaft 400 designed to rotate together with the drum, and directly connected to the rotor for direct transmission of the driving force of the rotor to the drum 3.
Over the door 5, there is a control panel 23 for receiving operational instruction from the user and controlling entire operation of the washing machine.
On a front of the outer case 1, there is a door 5 mounted thereon. Between the door 5 and the tub 2, there is a gasket 25.
Moreover, on the outer case 1, there is a door lock switch assembly 15 for locking the door.
The door lock switch assembly 15, having solenoid and plunger for moving back and forth depending on application of power to the solenoid to lock or unlock the door, is known, detailed description of which will be omitted as it is disclosed in Korea Patent Application No. 2000-0002202 (Publication No. P2001-0073574).
The hanging springs 21 are between an inside of an upper surface of the outer case 1 and an upper portion of an outside circumference of the tub 2 for hanging the tub, and the dampers 22 are between a lower portion of an outside circumference of the tub 2 and a lower surface of the outer case 1, for damping vibration of the tub 2 occurred during spinning.
In the meantime, at a lower portion of the front of the outer case 1, there is a lower cover cap 24 mounted thereon, inside of which a pump assembly is mounted, having a filter housing 26 with a filter therein for filtering fluffs and other foreign matters from washing water, and a drain pump 27 for discharging filtered washing water.
At an outlet side of the pump assembly, there is a drain hose 10 connected thereto for guiding the washing water pumped by the drain pump 27 to be discharged to an outside of the washing machine.
However, the foregoing related art drum type washing machine has a drawback in that the user is required to squat down to dismount the filter in cleaning the filter 9a, which is not convenient.
That is, there has been difficulty in dismounting the filter because the user is required to squat down, open the lower cover cap 24 with a coin or the like, and, again, open a tight cap with a hand, for taking out the filter from the filter housing 26.
Even in mounting the drain filter, the user is required to undergo the same inconvenience of the squatting down.
That is, the related art drum type washing machine shown in FIG. 1 has a drawback of impairing product reliability due to user's inconvenience in mounting/dismounting the drain filter.
Particularly, for child safety, the related art drum type washing machine has the lower cap 24 designed hard to open with a bare hand.
As a result of this, there has been much trouble and inconvenience in dismounting the drain filter, such that the lower cover cap 24 can be opened by turning up the lower cover cap 24 with a coin or the like with difficulty in a state the user squats down with inconvenience, and, even if the cover cap 24 is opened, the filter can be taken out after the filter cap is opened by turning the filter cap with difficulty.